Remembrance Day and Poppies

I understand the reservations about jewellery poppies and have mixed feelings myself. I do like them, especially the small lapel pins, but if I bought one I would still always contribute to the annual poppy collection.

Thanks all for the info about white poppies.

I bought a big triple poppy glitzy glittery brooch (which I am sure I wore this morning but can't find now) from the Royal British Legion website a couple of years ago. I have bought a very small metal poppy pin badge with the year 2016 on it from the Royal British Legion website this year, along with some poppy drop earrings.

I bought two paper poppies from the gentleman selling them at the supermarket on Sunday and I have just bought three larger 2016 metal poppy pins and a handbag poppy charm from the poppy sellers this evening, in a different supermarket.

So my bling poppies haven't stopped me buying paper ones, and by buying from the RBL website, I know the money is going direct to them.

I love poppies, and will wear the brooch (if I haven't lost it completely) and the earrings all year round. I don't feel I am saddlebacking on remembrance day because of this

I am not keen on poppies. I choose to give to charities and, for me, I don't need to wear something in order to do that. Sadly, rather than making me think of the sacrifice of soldiers who died in wars, poppies make me think of them being used as cannon fodder by politicians who would not have sent their own children to fight. Of course we needed to fight against Germany in the first and second world wars. Did we need to send our very young soldiers into battles where it was clear that they didn't stand a chance though? What about shooting for cowardice those of our own who went to pieces? We certainly didn't have to be part of the killing of civilians and sacrificing of our own military personal in the gulf wars. Our nation also likes to put Churchill on a pedestal. He was not a good man. The information about his character and his actions is not difficult to find. Britain seems to love commemorating wars. The issues around each of them was/is complex. I want no part of playing the game of righteousness myself. No doubt there are those who say, I am missing the point about wearing poppies. I know what the point is supposed to be, but I feel it's a clean, neat way of shutting down a discussion that the establishment never wanted to have. Never having that discussion will make it easier for them to send more young adults to fight in other wars.

I have one of these Jewellery poppies, which I enjoy wearing in NOVEMBER. However, I always buy a poppy from the sellers as usual. I would like to think everyone else does this as well......it doesn't exactly cost a lot of money. Anyone who only buys/bought a jewellery one and does not buy a 'proper' one should be ashamed of themselves. I think wearing them the week of remembrance is early enough. I am fed up already with seeing the TV presenters wearing them in October, far too early.

I have a Buckley poppy I bought a few years ago from The Royal Legion. I always buy a paper poppy from the sellers. In fact I buy one every time I go out as I lose them or forget to put it on!I wear my poppy with pride.

Rudyard Kipling's son tried to join the Navy but was stopped because of his bad eyesight. The he tried twice to join the army and they wouldn't have him.
So Kipling got in touch with some friends of his high up in the army and got him into the Irish Guards.
He was killed at Loos having been there for two days. He was last seen stumbling blindly through the mud.
I know this because I was reading a poem by Kipling with my grandson today.

Kipling wrote
"If any question why we died,
Tell them because our fathers lied."

I will wear a white poppy, but not until next week.

We should be ashamed of ourselves for buying jewellery ? It is sold by the British Legion FGS, all money goes to them and most of us make donations too and this is not virtue signalling it is a fact

vfpuk.org/2015/my-name-is-legion/

I agree with the Veterans for Peace organisation and won't wear a red poppy because of the British Legion's links with the arms industry.

Instead of attending commemorations with sombre faces and wearing poppies, I believe successive British governments should actually have put their money where their mouths are. Over the years there have been numerous reports of army families being housed in sub-standard accommodation and of soldiers who have suffered traumatic physical and mental injuries not receiving proper support and sometimes ending up on the streets.

Also I hate the tone of the commemorations and the emphasis on the heroism and nobility of war rather than its tragedy and degradation. I think this sums it up:

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie:
Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori
.
From
Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen 1917-18
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
- it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country

"The inquisitive mind of a child"

Why are they selling poppies, Mummy?
Selling poppies in town today.
The poppies, child, are flowers of love.
For the men who marched away.

But why have they chosen a poppy, Mummy?
Why not a beautiful rose?
Because my child, men fought and died
In the fields where the poppies grow.

But why are the poppies so red, Mummy?
Why are the poppies so red?
Red is the colour of blood, my child.
The blood that our soldiers shed.

The heart of the poppy is black, Mummy.
Why does it have to be black?
Black, my child, is the symbol of grief.
For the men who never came back.

But why, Mummy are you crying so?
Your tears are giving you pain.
My tears are my fears for you my child.
For the world is forgetting again.

Author - Mary Link nee Gilbert

'Thought for the Day' on Radio 4 explained quite a lot! I'm with Eloethan and Pogs tho'.

I think they change the design of the enamel ones every year and some even have dates on them so you can't use them the following year. I buy an enamel one and several ordinary ones, which I always lose and they break so easily.

I bought an enamel one and it has the date on it. I think they did last year too, but not the very small ones. We buy a few of the ordinary poppies each year also as they always seem to fall off and get lost prior to the day! I always keep the ones we don't lose - I don't know why, but I can't bring myself to throw them away. I keep them in a box.

I have one of the Buckley ones, which I love. I think criticising jewellery poppies is a bit pious, tbh. My husband wears a fun knitted one with green leaves; an old lady we know spent all year making 250 of them, they all sold at £4 each. I suppose that offends the pious brigade too. Obviously we always give £1 or £2 to any poppy seller we see too, so must contribute at least £20 to the Appeal each year. I assure you wearing a bling or knitted poppy in no way detracts from the veneration & gratitude we feel for our ex-Servicemen.

When I was a child, some people wore white poppies and it was acceptable, I think I was surrounded by fairly tolerant people!

As an adult I decided to wear one but found out how distressing it is for some people - one woman shouted that I was disrespectful to fire fighters - I have no idea why. However, I decided that I did not want to distress anyone. I don't think that they should get distressed by white poppies, but if they do, I don't want to make things worse for them.

Last year I decided to attend a Remembrance Service, which I don't usually. Schoolchildren were laying individual markers for each local person who died in 1915 and I knew that my grandmother would want me to attend and remember her beloved brother. I was very moved to be able to talk to the young boy who laid the marker for my great uncle (last seen by his sister kissing a girl under the railway bridge!)

But the rest of the service seemed jingoistic to me -lots of 'parade ground' type shouting of orders and marching up and down. I knew that my pacifist grandmother would have disliked it. If it brought comfort to those who had served and lost comrades, friends or family, then I am glad, but it felt uncomfortable to me.

Was I one of the 'pious' ones Polly? Just because I prefer to wear my simple poppy does not make me pious. I can assure you over the years I have bought many a knitted poppy. My friends knit them every year raising hundreds of pounds.I have also bought quite a few of the glitzy ones.I have also a number of the metal lapel ones.I also bought a Tower of London ceramic one. Everyone bought in support of the British Legion and to remember all those who gave their lives for our freedom.The only one I wear in November is the simple paper poppy. I wore it also at the National Commemorative Event to Mark the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Thiepval Memorial on July 1st this summer,where I also laid a poppy wreath.
I have also stood for hours selling poppies.The first poppies I sold had no leaves.We used to have to attach the leaves with silver foil prior to selling them on the streets. No Polly,I am definitely not pious.

I agree with the need for remembrance, but feel uneasy the 'commemoration' often seems to turn into 'celebration'.

I have the jewellery Poppy as shown by Daphne Broon. I have one because when I buy the paper Poppies I always loose it. Every time I see a Poppy Seller I always donate, it makes no difference to me that I have a jewellery Poppy.

Eleothan thanks so much for the link to Veterans For Peace. I was shocked to see the links between the British Legion and the arms industry. I won't be buying a red poppy this year I shall go back to a white one. I can't support anything which is linked to the events in Yemen.

Eloethan I think that most veterans are 'for peace'.
I think the soldiers going into Mosel are for peace as are the terrified people they are liberating from Isil.

Unfortunately, as long as we have the likes of Isil, Hitler, Assad etc we are going to need weapons. Waving a white flag just doesn't work very well when faced with evil.

When the red flag flies at No 10 we will await to see how well veterans, injured or not and their families are cared for.

Don't worry too much about the RBL either, most of the fundraisers standing out in the cold and rain are very old, they won't be able to carry on for many more years.

Good post Jalima I agree with all of it.

.....and I have been wearing my red poppy all week.

Jalima did you bother to read the article or is it too pacifist for your taste? It is people who have fought who are Veterans For Peace and who see the British Legion slowly but surely turning what was a time for Remembrance and contemplation about the horrors of war and the young men sacrificed by different governments on many battlefields, into a celebration and glorification of battles. At the same time the BL are firmly acquiring and branding the red poppy which was once meant to be a symbol of the horrors WW1 and the lives sacrificed needlessly. As for their links with the weapons industry I am sure the people of Yemen wouldn't share your belief that we must have weapons, they might particularly object to the involvement of Britain with the training and supplying of the Saudi Airforce, or do you think the Yemeni people are 'evil' as well?

www.ibtimes.co.uk/i-stopped-wearing-poppy-when-it-no-longer-meant-never-again-1589562

By Harry Leslie Smith

This refers to WW2, but still relevant to Remembrance Day. Every time I read it I "well up". How inspirational Churchill was, wish we had his likes now:
"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a tho